Hillary’s Major Address On Gender Issues and Update

It occurred to me that Hillary Clinton could never make a major speech on gender issues, because no one is ready to be honest about gender in the United States.

Obama could barely get away with his race speech, but people of good will at least will listen to him and say, “Yep, he’s right about that . . . yep, and he’s right about that, too.” We’re at the stage where it’s possible for people, black and white, to look inside themselves and be honest about what’s been going on, what is going on, and where they would like the country to go.

Sexism, on the other hand, is so pervasive, it’s not even noticed. If Hillary were to make a speech on gender, she would be considered divisive and would lose half of her male voters and a quarter of her female voters.

Essentially, the difference between racism and sexism in America is that, on racism, we’ve progressed to the point that when people are being racist they sort of know they’re being racist, enough so they feel the need to justify themselves — if only by defining their racism as not being racism. But when people are being sexist, they think they’re just dealing in concrete verities. And they feel good about themselves.

UPDATE: I like this post and want to highlight it:

mick, I think this is where your age plays a factor. Sexism is on its quick way to be stamped out. I am in my 20′s, the majority of my supervisors and my supervisors supervisors have been women. Women made up more of my professors at UCLA. Women made up a higher percentage of STUDENTS at UCLA. I believe our commencement address when i graduated was by a woman. This is a huge reason that the women voting in large step with Clinton are all close to seniors 55+…

This is what I say to this. If it turns out you’re right, great. But the thing is, when I was your age, I would have said the same thing. Women rule the universe until they’re about 25. The worlds young women travel in are welcoming to young woman. You go up to an information desk and the person looks up and smiles. The temperature drops considerably when you’re older, and I’d bet that the president of your company, and your university, and your country is a guy. And will still be a guy, maybe even when you’re middle-aged.

I would like to be wrong. But all the young feminists that I had a good time laughing at (and the women I knew laughed at) when I was 24 and 25 have turned out to be right. You may find this to be the case, too, by the time you’re in your forties, which is like 20 minutes from now.